ARGUMENT.Taking their way upon one of the mounds by which the streamlet, spoken of in the last Canto, was embanked, and having gone so far that they could no longer have discerned the forest if they had turned round to look for it, they meet a troop of spirits that come along the sand by the side of the pier. These are they who have done violence to Nature; and among them Dante distinguishes Brunetto Latini, who had been formerly his master; with whom, turning a little backward, he holds a discourse which occupies the remainder of this Canto.

Note 1. A part of the Alps where the Brenta rises, swollen by melting snows. [back]

Note 2. Ser Brunetto, a Florentine, the secretary or chancellor of the city, and Dantes preceptor, hath left us a work so little read, that both the subject of it and the language of it have been mistaken. It is in the French spoken in the reign of St. Louis, under the title of Tresor; and contains a species of philosophical lectures. [back]

Note 3. With another text. He refers to the predictions of Farinata, in Canto x. [back]

Note 4. Francesco. Accorso, a Florentine, interpreted the Roman law at Bologna, and died in 1229, at the age of 78. His authority was so great as to exceed that of all the other interpreters, so that Cino da Pistoia termed him the Idol of Advocates. His sepulchre, and that of his son Francesco here spoken of, is at Bologna, with this short epitaph: Sepulcrum Accursii Glossatoris et Francisci eus Filii. [back]